She should have left when she turned eighteen like any normal person. She should have gone to college somewhere far away, built a life that didn't revolve around managing her mother's fragile mental state.
But she couldn't. Not when Allegra needed her and she was the only thing standing between her little sister and June's cycles of neglect and overwhelming guilt. Briar had even swallowed her pride when Allegra got sick, calling David's old number, leaving messages. His actual daughter was dying and he couldn't even text back.
The familiar landmarks began to appear. The rusted mailbox that marked the Henderson property, the burned-out shell of an old barn, the sharp curve where the mountain dropped away into shadow. Twenty-five years. Her mother had spent twenty-five years spinning tales about this place, about bargains made in blood and shadow. Briar had driven to the only location that made sense, the exact spot where their car had careened off the highway, where her father died and her mother claimed to have been saved.
The forest loomed before her, ancient Hemlocks standing sentinel against intrusion into their shadow realm. Behind them, old growth maples and black cottonwoods stretched skyward, their branches twisted into arthritic claws that seemed poised to snatch any soul foolish enough to venture close. The sensation of being watched pressed against Briar's skin, raising goosebumps despite the afternoon warmth.
Even with the sun hanging high, the space beyond the tree line swallowed light whole. Darkness pooled between the trunks, thick and viscous. The wrongness of it churned in her stomach with each breath of too-sweet air that drifted from the depths.
The memorial cross tilted at a drunken angle, white paint flaking away. Offerings littered the ground around it—plastic flowers bleached colorless by sun, a moldering teddy bear, rain-warped photographs. The inscription carved into the wood had weathered but remained legible:Stars Cannot Shine Without Darkness.
Briar traced the letters with trembling fingers, the rough grain catching at her skin. "I wish you were here, Dad." The words scraped past the tightness in her throat. "Mom says you always had the answers, that you could find light in anything. I try, but lately..." She pressed her palm flat against the wood. "I can't do this alone anymore."
Tears blurred her vision before she realized she was crying. She swiped at them roughly, angry at her own weakness. "Sorry. I promised Allegra I'd be strong. She's dying, Dad. The doctors don't know why. And Mom thinks—God, she actually believes something in these woods can save her."
The silence stretched between her words and the empty air, broken only by the distant call of a crow and the whisper of pine needles overhead. Briar pressed her forehead against the weathered wood of the cross, breathing in the scent of old rain and decay. Part of her wanted to stay here forever, suspended in this moment where she could pretend her father might actually answer, where the weight of impossible choices didn't crush down on her shoulders. But Allegra was waiting, and time was a luxury they'd already run out of.
So she straightened, wiping the last of the tears from her cheeks, and turned toward the forest that had haunted her mother's stories for as long as she could remember.
Wind erupted from nowhere, violent and purposeful. Autumn leaves whirled up in a cyclone of crimson and gold, whipping her hair across her face. The trees groaned, bending away from something she couldn't see. Through the chaos of debris and shadow, movement flickered at the forest's edge—a figure dissolving back into darkness before her eyes could focus.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. The wind pulled at her clothes, her hair, trying to drag her toward the trees. Yet the forest itself remained still, untouched by the gale that battered everything else. The wrongness of it made her teeth ache.
Cold bloomed in her chest, spreading through her veins. She stumbled back toward her car, but the wind died as suddenly as it had risen. In its wake, the scattered leaves had arranged themselves into a perfect path leading directly to the tree line.
"You're losing it." She kicked at the leaves, sending them flying. They swirled through the air, then settled back into the exact same pattern. She kicked them again. Same result. The path reformed with mechanical precision, as though it were waiting.
Her keys weren't in her pocket.
Panic flared as she searched the ground around the memorial, dropped to her knees to comb through dead grass and gravel. Nothing. She'd had them just minutes ago, had used them to drive here, had—
A metallic jingle drew her attention to the forest edge. There, glinting in a shaft of reluctant sunlight, her keys dangled from a low branch just past the tree line.
Every instinct screamed danger. Keys didn't move on their own. Leaves didn't form paths. Wind didn't blow in only one direction. But Allegra's face swam before her, pale and fading, and her mother's desperate words echoed:Find him. Beg if you must.
She approached the forest edge slowly, each step a betrayal of common sense.Just grab the keys. Three seconds. In and out.
Her foot crossed the threshold between sunlight and shadow.
The world lurched sideways. Temperature plummeted twenty degrees in an instant, her breath misting in air gone thick and syrupy. The stench hit her—rot and green growth and something sickly sweet that coated the back of her throat. Above, branches knitted together with deliberate intent, weaving a canopy that devoured light.
Her keys had vanished from the branch.
She spun back toward the road, but vertigo sent her stumbling. The highway shimmered and warped, her car a distant smudge of color through bending air. She took a step toward it and found herself exactly where she'd started.
A branch snapped in the underbrush. Heavy and deliberate.
Bear, her panicked mind supplied. Black bears were common here.Make noise, make yourself big, back away slowly. But when she opened her mouth to yell, only a whisper emerged, the sound swallowed by oppressive quiet.
Another crack echoed through the trees, this one sharper, closer. To her left.
Briar's breath caught as she slowly turned her head. Nothing but shadows and the gentle sway of branches. But the forest had gone unnaturally quiet. There was no birdsong, no rustle of small creatures in the underbrush. Even the wind had stilled.
Movement flickered in her peripheral vision. To her right.
Her pulse hammered against her ribs as she whipped around, but again found only empty forest. Whatever was out there was staying just beyond the edge of sight, circling her with predatory patience. The rational part of her mind whispered that it could be deer, or elk disturbed by her presence. But bears didn't hunt in coordinated pairs, and deer didn't move with such deliberate stealth.
Another branch snapped. Behind her this time.
